


harm reduction

by HirilElfwraith



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Screenplay/Script Format, Suicide, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 10:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19722034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HirilElfwraith/pseuds/HirilElfwraith
Summary: You cannot be an avatar and be innocent. You cannot come back from the dead on borrowed power from a god of fear that demands you feed it, and not hurt people - and the more people you hurt, the easier it gets.Jonathan Sims will hurt people for as long as he lives. The math is easy from there.(Mind the tags.)





	harm reduction

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, mind the tags on this one. This is not a happy fic. 
> 
> It was cathartic to write, though.

[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS ON]

[PHONE RINGS] 

WOMAN’S VOICE: Hello?

THE ARCHIVIST: Hello, is this Lucia Wright? 

LUCIA: Yes? 

THE ARCHIVIST: Hello, Ms. Wright. My name is Jonathan Sims, I’m with the Magnus Institute. I’m calling to follow up on a statement you gave to our Archivist at the time, Gertrude Robinson, in December 2008? Regarding a…hole filled with meat?

LUCIA: Oh. Yeah. Um…alright, I guess. Will this take long?

THE ARCHIVIST: No, I only have a few questions for you. 

LUCIA: Okay then, I guess.

THE ARCHIVIST: You mentioned in your statement that you’d been having trouble with nightmares. Did they change or improve at all after giving your statement to Ms. Robinson?

LUCIA: Um. Yeah, actually. They got worse. They got so… _vivid._ They were bad before, but this was like I was there again. And…she was there. Your Archivist. She’d stand there and watch me with this…clinical kind of detachment, like I was a bug that she’d stuck to a board with a pin. Like she didn’t care at all, and she was just…cataloguing it. 

THE ARCHIVIST: How long did you have these nightmares? Are you still having them? 

LUCIA: No, um…not like that. I had them for years, mind you. Almost started getting used to them. But they were so, so awful, and the therapy didn’t help at all. Every single night I had them. I blamed her, a little, even though I knew they couldn’t really have been her fault. I _hated_ her. But a few years ago she…she stopped watching me. And then they started to get better. They weren’t so real, and I didn’t have them so much, and when I did they were more kind of…hazy. I didn’t remember them so crystal-clear when I woke up. They felt more like, well…normal nightmares. I still get them sometimes, I think I always will, but they’re not the same as they were. I think the therapy’s helping. 

THE ARCHIVIST: Did they stop in the spring of 2015? Somewhere between March and May?

LUCIA: Yeah, actually. That sounds about right. 

THE ARCHIVIST: All right. Thank you, Ms. Wright, you’ve been…very helpful. That’s all the questions I have for you. 

LUCIA: Okay, um, you’re welcome.

THE ARCHIVIST: Goodbye. 

LUCIA: Bye. 

[PHONE CALL ENDS]

THE ARCHIVIST: …right then. Okay. That, um. That’s good to know. The nightmares die with the Archivist who records them. I thought that would probably be the case, but it’s good to have confirmation. 

[HEAVY SIGH, MUFFLED THROUGH HANDS PRESSED OVER HIS FACE]

THE ARCHIVIST: I guess I know what I have to do now. 

[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS OFF]

[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS ON]

THE ARCHIVIST: This is…it, then. I guess. I’ve thought about doing this before, but…it always seemed wasteful. There was always some other crisis coming forward, some ritual to stop, more things that had to be done that I could be useful for. But…all the rituals are accounted for. No more immediate crises. Well, all except for the Watcher’s Crown, and…I think this is the way to stop that one. 

[SIGHS] There are probably other ways. It seems like stopping rituals is actually far easier than I thought it was when we were first gearing up to stop the Unknowing. It’s very easy to tip them over into the balance of not succeeding. Maybe none of them were ever going to work. [LAUGHS SOFTLY, WITHOUT HUMOR]

But, anyways, this will probably be…a significant setback. At least. If nothing else it will spite Elias, and that’s always a plus. 

That’s not…my main reason for doing this. I don’t know. It definitely helps, but…

[DEEP INHALE] I’m hurting people. Innocent people, even. Every single person who I took a statement from. I hurt them every single day I’m alive. It’s…an unfortunate accident in the cases of people whose statements I took before I understand the consequences, and some of them deserve it as far as I’m concerned, but…

There have been. Times. When I’ve felt that someone had a statement and I _wanted_ it. And they’d done nothing! They were just…trying to live their lives. Leave their traumatic experiences behind. They didn’t want to come to the Magnus Institute and _make a statement,_ and they weren’t enemies I had to pull information from in the heat of the moment. They were just…people. And I forced them to relive their worst memories, and force them to have nightmares about it every night, and I’m going to keep hurting them as long as I’m alive. As long as I’m… _feeding_ off them. And I did it because I just couldn’t stop myself, and I _liked_ it. It felt good to take and take and take, to…[CHUCKLES BITTERLY] _“pull out their secrets like teeth.”_ And I’m afraid that I’m going to keep hurting people. I’ve never been good at self control. 

So, this is…the best course of action. No more convenient disasters to throw myself into, so…I’m taking matters into my own hands. 

[CLUNK OF SOMETHING METAL BEING SET ON THE DESK]

I, uh…Daisy doesn’t really guard her guns that well. She’s just got them all stuffed in a duffle bag under her cot. It’s not like she’s really using them these days, since she’s avoiding the Hunt. I think she really only takes them out to clean them. She and Basira are out doing something, and I know where her cot is, of course – even with the tunnels, the Archives aren’t that big, and we’ve rather been in each other’s pockets the past few months. 

I’m. I’m sorry. Daisy, Melanie, Basira, Martin. Georgie. I don’t even really want to do this, to be honest, but it’s the only way. I’m a monster. I have been for a long time. I shouldn’t have woken up from that coma. I can’t keep going the way I am, I can’t keep hurting people. I…I know this is probably going to hurt you. But you can’t honestly tell me that my life is worth all the harm I’m doing to all those people, and…I know myself well enough to know that if I’m still alive, then I’m going to hurt more. No matter how much I’m going to tell myself that I won’t, I’m going to slip. It would be…very easy. 

I’m scared. Of course I’m scared. I’ve been scared for so long, maybe my whole life. I don’t really believe in an afterlife, but…if there’s a hell, I’m definitely going there. It’s…I deserve it, at this point. But I don’t think there is, not really. And honestly, I am…so tired of fighting. I’m tired of hurting all the time. I’m just…tired. It might be nice, actually. To just…end. To not have to do anything, to not have to be anything. 

I don’t even really have any affairs to put in order. I think most of my stuff got thrown away when I was in the coma, and I haven’t gotten much since. I’ve just been living in the Archives. All I’ve got is some clothes and a desk full of miscellany, and that should be…easy enough to sort through. 

I’m sorry about the mess, though. Not much I can really do about that, short of putting a shower curtain down or something. It’s…not like this is the first time this office has seen bloodshed. 

Anyway, I’m…sorry. I really am. But this is the right thing to do. [SWALLOWS HARD] I, uh…goodbye.

[SOUND OF THE GUN BEING COCKED]

[DEEP, SHAKY BREATHS]

[WHISPERING] Come on. Come on. Just…

[A CHOKED OFF SOB]

[GUNSHOT]

[METALLIC THUD OF THE GUN CLATTERING TO THE FLOOR, FOLLOWED BY THE SOFTER, HEAVIER THUD OF A BODY SLUMPING ONTO THE DESK]

[SLOW, STEADY DRIPPING]

[SILENCE]

[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS OFF]

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hirilelfwraith on tumblr if you want to yell at me there. Sorry about this.


End file.
